The honeymoon trimester

Once you reach the 14 week mark of your pregnancy you are officially in the second trimester, and if you're lucky like I was, most of the horrible symptoms of the first trimester go away. That means no more all-day nausea and no more wish-you-were-dead exhaustion. Plus an added bonus, you can feel the little tyke move!

Around 15 weeks I started to think I could feel something in there, by 16 weeks I knew what I was feeling was baby, and by 18 weeks my husband could feel him moving around in there. Actually by 18 weeks my husband could see him moving around in there.

What does it feel like? Ask someone to come around randomly throughout the day and gently poke you right above your pelvis a few times with a finger. That's about what those first few weeks felt like to me. It is simultaneously amazing and super creepy. Or maybe I've seen too many sci-fi movies...

Unfortunately though, the second trimester of pregnancy brings it's own problems. For me, problem #1 was round ligament pain. Normally this is a sharp groin pain that most women feel when standing up or rolling over or something similar, it normally lasts for a few seconds and then it's gone. Well, let me tell you something my fellow riding friends: The stronger the muscles of your pelvic floor the worse you'll feel round ligament pain. Know what makes your pelvic floor muscles really, really strong? Horseback riding, especially dressage. Yay. So one Sunday morning, as I was trying to make myself breakfast, I ended up on the floor gasping and crying from intense groin pain that didn't quit for 10 minutes (my poor husband had decided to throw me in the car and take me to the hospital when it finally let up). When I called my doctor's office the next day, the nurse said that was normal. "But it put me on the floor!" I said. "Totally normal," she replied.

Uh huh, not acceptable. So I did some internet searching and found a website called Spinning Babies that had some exercises for stretching out those muscles and ligaments that were killing me. The first one is called the Inversion, it looks absolutely bonkers but it helped SO MUCH! It takes your head a few days to get used to it, but the stretch on my ligaments started to help immediately. If you can, keep this up during the rest of the pregnancy, not only is it a good stretch but it also helps get the baby head-down for birth.

Helpful exercise #2 were the pelvic tilts, these not only help stretch the pelvic floor muscles and ligaments but also stretch your lower back nicely in the third trimester. Feels SO good!

let the belly hang

tilt your pelvic toward your chin and round your back

 And finally, another exercise I couldn't do without, the Bird Dog exercise. These are for when your back starts to hurt and pain starts shooting down your legs. Give it a few days to a week to start working, but it will help the pain go away. This can be done in the third trimester, balancing becomes hard but not impossible.

 

After I started doing these exercises, the second trimester was a breeze for me. I even went for a few rides, much to Coriander's chagrin. Here's another tip: When you're six months pregnant, canter in two-point/half seat. Trust me on this.

At this point I've still got a month to go. We're almost ready to meet our little guy!